Striving for Happiness is Futile. Try Curiosity

It’s going to sound like heresy but when we make our objective of life to be happy it’s problematic… I think it’s the wrong objective in life and this is something that’s become very clear to me as someone who’s taught classes and been studying wellbeing for 15 years.

I’ve been listening to an All in the Mind podcast (MP3 and transcript), in which Lynne Malcolm interviews Todd Kashdan. He’s the Professor of Psychology at George Mason University in Virginia and author of Curious: Discover the missing ingredient to a fulfilling life. His thesis is that rather than pursuing happiness, we should embrace curiosity as a guiding principle. In the interview he discusses how being a curious explorer of the world allows you to be present in the moment, and enjoy the wonder of life. A key theme is embracing uncertainty: we cannot immerse ourselves in curiosity if we feel we cannot handle a sense of not knowing.

…we think that curiosity is all about just something new and mysterious walking into our field of vision. But there’s another part of curiosity that people miss: it’s besides whether we think there’s something new or uncertain or mysterious. We need to believe that we can handle that novelty and that uncertainty, and if we don’t feel that we can handle it we’re not going to feel curious; we’re going to feel confused or we’re going to feel threatened. And often the reason people don’t feel this sense of wonder is because they don’t feel like they can handle or tolerate any of the tension that comes with the unknown.not handle a sense of not knowing.

Kashdan explores the connections with positive psychology, neuroplasticity and growth mindsets. In particular, he has strong views about fostering curiosity, and how we should interact with children. He is essentially talking about our own children, but it can be easily extrapolated to our students.

…there are some studies of people in New Zealand following children at adolescence for four or five years and showing that even when you account for how intelligent children are, the more that they seek out stimulation the more that they’re curious explorers the more intelligent they become over time, the better they do at school, the more satisfied they are with school, the better relationships they have with teachers.